Drum Circle (Beltane 2014)

Drum Circle (Beltane 2014) - a reading 

Today marks the return of Celtic summer, a day of bonfires, May poles, Lords and Ladies of the dance. And as we dance, the circle remains unbroken.

On this day seven years ago, I stood witness to a battle. I was the ghost that roamed the ramparts on the eve of Karen’s sacrifice. I watched abjectly as the trebuchet began adjusting fire. Below, in the courtyard stables, our warhorses stamped and nickered in their stalls, impatiently awaiting the day we would throw open the gates and ride out to relieve her siege. I feel no need to recount that grim tale set forth in the Chronicles, her personal Prose Edda.

Today, instead, I’ll relate the untold story of Karen’s victory celebration. The siege had been lifted, the counterattacks repelled, the dragon finally slain. Her pennant flew triumphantly on the hill overlooking of her fortress. At twilight, a circle of friends and companions gathered in annual pilgrimage. That night, she had proclaimed she would dance at the drum circle deep within the Dragon’s lair.

Allow me to set the scene. A sultry, summer night in Atlanta, wedged midway between Lughnasa and the Fall Equinox. It’s the weekend before Labor Day, the first night of Dragon*Con, the largest science fiction/fantasy convention in Southeast with crowds of sixty thousand plus.

Just before midnight we entered the labyrinth of conventions rooms in the basement of the Hyatt Regency on our way to a ballroom. We arrived early: the drummers were still setting up. The lights were on, the crowd light and mixed. The drums sat in a half-circle scribed with chairs. Masters hammered out instructional rhythms, simple to complex, for novices and journeymen to learn. Like their handlers, the drums themselves ranged from improvised to ornate. A random collection of bongos, bodhrans and bass drums; tabors and tom-toms; frame, hand and standing; anything that could bear a skin. All slapped, tapped, pounded or caressed by sticks, mallets, fingertips and palms as the rhythm required. One guy with a pickle bucket and a pair borrowed drumsticks held his own against the professionals.

A few brave souls expressed their appreciation on the dance floor. Yet the song remained unbalanced, all bass baritone with a touch of top tenor, but not a note of a sweet soprano counter-song. Karen, freshly outfitted in a circle skirt, peasant blouse and belled anklet, held position at the edge of the crowd. It was not yet her time. She would choose her dance wisely. This night was her homecoming, her prom, her graduation dance, all rolled into one.

During a lull between the sets, a hush descended. Then the high, rhythmic chime of multitudinous tiny carillons keeping time with a couple dozen footfalls presaged their arrival. The belly dancers parted the crowd like Moses’ twin sister, not with power but with presence. They sashayed in, all swirling skirts and brightly sequined bra-tops with bare, bangled midriffs, arms and ankles.

The drum master nodded as they moved to the center of the room, their aura holding back the overawed, encircling crowd. A slight smile played across his face as he held silent the boys of his improvised drumline. The girls formed two lines on the parquet floor, their eyes atwinkle with mischief.

A mallet descended onto the central drumhead. The drumming resumed with a new vigor in an explosion of well-time beats. A song emerged with no melody or harmony, all cadence and secondary rhythms. Toes tapped, feet stomped, hands pounded walls and chairs and thighs. The room throbbed, pulsed, pattered and thrummed with backbeat syncopation. A ringing metal bar rose above the base-note tempo like the sing-song of a childhood taunt.

In the center of the circle, the twin lines of dancers responded, mirroring their movements to the measure, all shoulders, curves and swinging hips in a single, fluid, undulating motion. They flowed from one routine to another in a stylized, synchronic seduction. Then, with supple arms tinkling with brass and silver bells, they encouraged the audience to join. Karen and her friend slid through the crowd toward the dance floor. Others soon followed. They danced and twirled, skirts billowing out from bare legs, Karen’s crocheted shawl floating above her shoulders. A barefoot, bare-chested male sword dancer in genie pants took up the challenge in a counterpoint, stretching and bending in ways that would make even the most flexible yogini envious.

The dancers were held hostage by Hawaiian militants: John Bonham, Neil Peart, Kodo and Kitaro. Their war drums drove the synchronous mass of swaying femininity. Through the rising crescendo, dance and drumbeat merged in a primal mix of masculine and feminine. In an atmosphere charged with skin-glistening pheromones, reverberating rhythms, and entwined motion, a new energy arose. An archetypal image of the horned god and triple goddess conspiring in an epicene re-enactment of a springtide Wild Hunt. We ignored the rising heat, our thirst and pure exhaustion as the tireless tempo pushed us onward. In that frozen moment, we all longed to belong. We were the dance and the dance would never end.

Yet sometime in the early morning, it did, at least for us. We departed the drum circle as a new, anarchic, glow-stick dance took hold, the younger crowd devolving into a chaos of tribalism without tradition. Returning to the cool, night air, we remained content. Karen had claimed her time upon the stage to celebrate her victory. Together, we had given her a near perfect Beltane dance.

Although the music has now faded, we still sometimes get swept up in the memory of that dance. And as we dance, the circle remains unbroken.

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III